 to happiness isn't brain surgery with Doc Snipes. This podcast was created to provide you the information and tools Doc Snipes gives her clients so that you too can start living happier. Our website, docsknipes.com, has even more resources, videos, and handouts, and even interactive sessions with Doc Snipes to help you apply what you learn. Go to docsknipes.com to learn more. Hey there, everybody, and welcome to happiness isn't surgery with Doc Snipes, practical tools to improve your mood and quality of life. Today we're going to be talking about psychological flexibility matrix and the Wizard of Oz. We're going to start by learning about what psychological flexibility is, and then learn how to use the matrix to achieve it, and we're going to look at the Wizard of Oz along the way. So what is psychological flexibility? Basically, it's the ability to experience feelings, thoughts, and situations without getting stuck. And I couldn't find a good graphic of this, but if you think about somebody who is in a room and they are trapped by lasers going all different directions in the room, and the only way to get out is to bend, twist, and contort themselves to get out, well that's psychological flexibility. When someone is feeling stuck emotionally, whether it's anger or fear or whatever it is, they feel like they've got those lasers that are holding them and they're paralyzed. Well, with psychological flexibility, they can mentally do those gymnastics to bend, twist, and navigate their way out of the maze. So another way to look at it is to think about Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Bad thing happened to her. Her dog, the old lady in the town wanted to euthanize her dog because it was chasing her cats. And so she got really upset. She got even more upset when Auntie M and Uncle Henry didn't do anything when Toto was being loaded up to be taken off to be euthanized. So she grabbed her dog and she hit the bricks, so to speak. She met strange creatures along the way and could have dismissed them, but instead they ended up being her greatest allies. So psychological flexibility, instead of going, I've got this on my own or I'm not gonna trust anybody, she's like, okay, you know, let's give it a chance. She could have given up, but she kept trying to figure out ways to duck, dodge, and hurdle the obstacles that were coming in her direction, such as being lost in the forest, the flying monkeys, and the witches. So six components of the matrix. The here and now feelings, thoughts, and reactions. What do you feel? And we're gonna go into each of these in more depth in a minute. Your destination happiness, which in this example, we're gonna call the Emerald City. Where are you trying to get? Your thoughts and feelings that keep you from moving toward the Emerald City. What's holding you back? And think about the Scarecrow, who thought he didn't have a brain and he couldn't figure out how to move forward. And the lion, who kept saying he was scared and he couldn't do it. He just kept saying he couldn't do it. Ultimately, you know, he ended up doing it, but I'll get there. Think about what actions keep you from moving toward your Emerald City. What types of things do you do that keep you stuck? Think about your thoughts and feelings that move you toward your Emerald City. Think about the Good Witch, Glenda, who came along and said, you've got this. And at the end, she said, you always had the power. You just had to close your eyes and click your heels. But you have to believe in yourself. And what actions do you do that move you toward the Emerald City? So the Matrix, you know, just to give you a visual, if you're looking at the video of this on our YouTube channel, that's youtube.com slash all CEUs education, all one word. The video of this shows you that you can go two directions and you have actions and behaviors like taking care of yourself and using coping skills and journaling and all kinds of things that can help you move toward the Emerald City, toward those things that are important to you. And you have actions and behaviors that you do, like sleeping, drinking, fighting, cavorting, that may move you away from what you hope to encounter, may move you away from the Emerald City. And you also have thoughts and feelings that do the same thing. So the first step is to describe your Emerald City. Where is it that you're going? Who and what is important in your life? Think about family, pets, your career, money, the ability to do certain activities, your health. Not all of these are gonna be important to you, but which ones are? And of the people, if you say family is important, okay. Now, is that a couple of people in your family like your kids and your spouse or is that everybody in your family? Who and what is most important in your life? Cause you only have a certain amount of energy. And when you start making choices about how to use your energy, you're gonna ask yourself, is this helping me get closer to the people and things that are important in my life? For example, money may not be super important in your life. If you've got your family and you've got a job that you don't hate and you've got your health, you may not care if you've got hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. But some people do. So you have to know what is in your Emerald City. And then you have to know what characteristics about yourself that you hold dear. Cause these are the things when, before you make an action or before you make a decision, you go, does this fit with who I think I am? And values, you can just Google values lists and you can come up with lists anywhere from 10 to 500 values. But just an example here, values we're talking about are acceptance, accomplishment, achievement, honesty, integrity, ambition, creativity, approachability. Those characteristics that are not necessarily something you do. Yes, I can lift a 50 pound bag. Yes, I can drive a car. But that's not who I am. That's something I can do. Who I am, I am honest. I am intelligent. I am creative. I am, and those are the things that you want to focus on. So before you make a decision, you have to ask yourself, does this fit? I had a job at one point that paid really well, really well. And I really enjoyed parts of my job. But there were other parts of my job that went against my values. So I was constantly miserable. And the value it went against was honesty and loyalty. So I was constantly struggling to look at myself in the face in the morning. And that's not any way to live. That wasn't getting me toward my emerald city. That job was a job and it fulfilled some needs, but it also detracted from a lot. So when I decided to leave that job, I really needed to sit down and go, okay, this is how I feel. This is what's going on now. What's gonna get me closer to what's important in my life? And that was my farm and my pets and my family and my health, because my health was starting to take a toll too. And I decided that leaving that job was the best choice to help me continue to move forward, even though financially it was a little bit of a hiccup. So what are your away behaviors and reactions? Now I'm talking about you here. You only have so much energy and it's going to be used to help you move forward or wasted spinning in circles or worse yet, going backwards. So make a list of things you do when you get stressed, angry, lonely, afraid, that keep you from moving forward. Sleeping is one that some people do. And you may say, well, sleeping is a good thing. Yeah, but too much sleeping, you miss out on a lot of stuff. Too much sleeping can mess up your circadian rhythm so then you're not getting good quality sleep, then your body starts experiencing all kinds of other symptoms, including depression, lethargy, all kinds of stuff. So sleeping while it seems like it's a good response actually doesn't solve anything and it can make things worse. Now getting an adequate amount of sleep is on the other end, that's a toward behavior because we do need enough sleep. When you don't have enough quality sleep, your body starts secreting stress hormones and that works against you. So the key is enough quality sleep, not too much and making sure your sleep is quality. Another thing people do that moves them away from their goals and the things that are important can be drinking. You know, yes, it may help you relax in the moment, but again, it generally doesn't solve the problem. So when you sober up, the problem's still there, whether it's somebody at work that you don't get along with or you hate your job or whatever it is. So drinking really doesn't solve anything. It's more like spinning your wheels at best. And if you do things when you're under the influence that you end up regretting, that actually may be moving you away from your goals and ideals. So make a list of those things that you do that move you away from what's important. So when you start to do them, you can say, you know what, no, no, this is not helping me. I'm gonna let it go. Sometimes I'll get upset over things that I see on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and I'll get fired up for a second. And then I think to myself, you know what, no, it is not worth my energy to get upset over this because it's not going to move me any closer to my goals. It's actually going to take away precious energy that I could be using to focus on things that are more important to me. The next thing you do is identify other behaviors in your life that you do regularly which prevent you from moving toward your Emerald City, such as poor time management, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, and disorganization. You know, there's a lot of things that we can do. But I'm talking about things you do in your day-to-day life. Instead of taking care of yourself, what do you do that puts you down on this priority list about for being taken care of? You need to start keeping that in check because if you are not healthy and well rested and well nourished, then you're not going to be nearly as resilient which means you're not going to be able to be there for the people and things that are important to you. You gotta make a choice. Away thoughts and feelings. Remember that all feelings are normal. So I don't want you to think that well, I shouldn't be angry. All feelings are normal. That's your brain's way of going, hello, there might be an issue here. So I want you to think of emotions like dog poop. And you're like, okay, dog poop. Yes, dog poop. The reason I chose that is because you will remember it. Almost everybody remembers poop stories. When you smell poop, and if you've had a dog in the house, you know this, when you smell poop, you get up and check to see if the dog crapped in the house. It's like, oh, so initially you feel angry. And when the smell of the dog poop hits your nose. So you get up and you look and try to find the source of the smell. If you can't find it, you chalk it up to Fido having gas and you go about your day. If you do find dog poop, you don't just get angry and leave it there. Cause then it would permeate the house, the whole house would stink and it would just get worse. You do something about it. Emotions are the same way. If you get angry and you go and you check it out and you say, yes, this is something that requires my attention and you don't do anything about it. Well, then it's going to continue to haunt you and harm you, whether you're just stuffing it down or you're trying to ignore it. Sometimes you've got to deal with it. But if you don't, if you just leave that big pile of dog poop sitting in the middle of the living room, it's going to stink. Nobody going to want to come over and be around you. Worse yet, if you pack up that dog poop and carry it with you, and that's kind of akin to taking your bad mood for whatever reason and taking it around with you and everything you do, people aren't going to want to come sit next to you. People don't want to sit next to that dog poop. So remember, the smell of dog poop is like an emotion. It tells you that there might be something that needs attention. What you do with it will control the rest and you do have control over what you do with it. You do have control over whether you clean it up and you're done with it. The dog's long forgotten about it. Or if you pack it up and carry it with you when you go to the office. Negative emotions are like the dog poop of the soul. If you don't address them, they're going to permeate your whole being and start repelling others. If you start holding onto lots of anger or depression or whatever, people are going to go, oh yeah, they may have pity on you. They may care, but they may also be overwhelmed or repelled. So it's important to identify your negative emotions and go, you know what, this is a warning. This is a heads up just in case. And thank you, body, for giving me that heads up. But then you got to check it out and deal with it. You don't want to carry that stuff around with you. So to identify away thoughts and feelings. And these are the thoughts and feelings that move you away from those people and things that are important to you and keep you from acting in concert with your values, such as being compassionate and forgiving and loving and all those things. Keep a list or make a journal or either way. So you can start addressing the thoughts you regularly have that keep you from being happy. You know, you may not even notice them. So I encourage you to keep a journal for a week or two to identify some of these thoughts that you may not even realize are crossing your mind. Also include in that list your inner critics commentary. So when your inner critic says, you're gonna screw this up or you're gonna have a bad day, write that down because you need to address those issues. When you get angry, what thoughts do you have that keep you stuck in the quicksand of anger? When you get angry, you can, that's your body saying fight or flee. It's not saying think about the anger and stew in it for 30 minutes. It's saying do something. So the quicksand is when you tell yourself, I shouldn't be angry. Well, you are. So if you are, what are you gonna do about it? Remember that resentment, jealousy, envy and guilt are all forms of anger. Resentment, anger at somebody. Jealousy is anger at somebody for something they have that you don't. Or anger at the universe because somebody else has something you don't. Same thing with envy. Guilt is anger at yourself for doing or not doing something that you shouldn't have or should have. So anger comes in a lot of different forms. Identify those thoughts. When you get angry, write those thoughts down so you can start working on them. When you're sad or grieving, what thoughts do you have that keep you stuck? When you're anxious or afraid, what thoughts do you have that keep you stuck? And finally, when you're lonely, what thoughts do you have that keep you stuck in your loneliness? This will be four different pages for one page for each emotional category and the thoughts associated with it. But then you can start using tools to address those thoughts so they don't keep you stuck in quicksand. What impact does being unhappy have on your trip to the Emerald City? You know, yes. Occasional bouts of depression or anger or something. That's normal. But holding on to anger and being angry a lot, how does that impact your trip? You know, when we're angry, we tend to run out of energy a lot sooner. We tend to see the negative in things. We tend to miss the positive in things. Anger also affects us physically. It makes us tired, increases our pain, can give you neck pain, headaches, all kinds of things. So there's a lot of reasons we wanna address emotions more than just I wanna be happier, but it will improve our physical health, it will improve our relationships, it will improve our productivity, yada, yada. All right, so now you're toward reactions. What things can you do on a daily basis that help you move toward the Emerald City? This means what can you do to take care of yourself? Because you need to be happy, healthy and whole in order to get to the Emerald City. That was a long walk for Dorothy. So she needed to have it together. When you're upset and that angry, sad, lonely, anxious, any of those upset feelings, what things can you do that can help you address the issue so you can start using that energy to move forward again? And some examples, when you get upset, problem solving, think to yourself, okay, what are my options in this situation? Communication, communicate with others about how you feel and get social support or communicate with others about the situation that's going on and try to figure out how to solve it. Cognitive behavioral techniques, and I'm not gonna go into all of those here. There are lots of videos on our YouTube channel or other podcasts on happiness and brain surgery that can help you learn different cognitive behavioral techniques, but they help you change your thinking approach in order to feel more empowered and more successful. You can also journal or playing just distract yourself. Some things can't be changed. I remember when my dog Kenny died, it broke my heart and there was nothing I could do to bring it back. Instead of staying stuck in the sadness and sitting there and looking at pictures of him and feeling sad and wallowing, I chose to distract myself. I got packed the kids up and we went into town. This was when we lived next to DC. So we went on a day trip. So we weren't reminded of all those things for a little while. So it gave us a break. Did it make the pain completely go away? No, but it helped. And that was all I could do at that moment because grief is something you've got to work through. But staying stuck in it and wallowing in it isn't going to do any good. And finally, your toward thoughts and feelings. So what thoughts and feelings can you have on a daily basis that help you move toward your Emerald City? And you're like, what? Yes, when you wake up in the morning, what positive thoughts can you have? What things can you do in order to help yourself feel happy? When you wake up in the morning, my foster cat decided last night that she trusted me enough to sleep on me all night long. OK, yes, it kept me up. But when I woke up this morning and she was still laying on me, it made me very, very happy. And when I see my kids in the morning, that makes me very happy. Sunrises, those make me happy. I try to do things in the morning, especially before I go to work, that make me happy. Instead of just going through the motions, I try to infuse happiness because it gets me started on a good foot. When I exercise, it makes me happy. It releases endorphins and all kinds of stuff. It exercises good stuff. But other things that you can do, have thoughts that are empowering, that tell you that you can do it, whatever it is for that day. You've got this, and it's going to be a good day. Have thoughts that inspire contentment, whether you keep a gratitude journal or you just look around and you're grateful for what you have. Have thoughts that inspire hope that today is going to be an awesome day. And self-esteem, reflect upon what's good about you. Why are you a good person? You're honest, you're caring, you're loyal, you're yada, you're yada. People would be lucky to have you as a friend. Have thoughts of optimism. Things can get better. They may be good now, but they can get better. And instead of going, oh, well, today's probably going to be a crappy day, say today is going to be a good day. I am going to make a silk purse out of a sows ear, no matter what it takes. And finally, have compassion towards yourself and others. When you are compassionate towards others, you're giving them the benefit of the doubt. Instead of thinking, oh, this cashier is just going so slowly and getting angry. And I've got places to be. Having compassion for that person going, you know what? It's probably a really long day standing up there and running a register for eight hours. Having compassion with yourself. If you get to work, and you know, one of those days that you just can't focus. Instead of beating yourself up over it, do what you can and be optimistic that, okay, tomorrow's going to be a better day. I did what I had to today and tomorrow will be a better day. All of those things help prevent you from using a bunch of excess energy on regret and being angry with yourself and all that other stuff and it moves you forward. When you're upset and, you know, so what we just talked about are things that you do on a daily basis to get yourself started on the right foot and to help you continue on the right foot. Now think about somebody you know, you know, or somebody you've heard of, that is just one of those people that is just always relatively happy. And they're always fun to be around and maybe always is a little bit of an extreme. But these are the people you want to think about, you know, people that you want to be like in terms of their values and their personality. And what types of thoughts do you think they tell themselves every morning when they're brushing their teeth and getting ready for work? When you're upset and angry, you can also have a whole different set of thoughts. So when you're feeling unhappy, what thoughts and feelings can you have that can help you address the issue so you can start using that energy to move forward again? So when you're depressed, you know, we'll stick with Kenny right now. When Kenny passed, I was depressed and it was really sad. But what feelings could I have to help me start moving forward again? I started remembering the funny things that he used to do and the good times that we had and thinking about how, you know, we saved him from the pound and he had a really good life when he was with us. So focusing on the positive, focusing on keeping Kenny's memory alive and the kids and I still talk about him occasionally. But those are all thoughts and feelings that I can have that help me not stay stuck in unhappiness and move forward and be able to be loving and compassionate and all those things that I want to be. So putting it all together. And again, if you're on the podcast, if you go to our YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash all CEU's education, you can see the visuals for this, but basically your away behaviors can be things like oversleeping or not sleeping at all, eating, drinking alcohol, acting out, being aggressive, seeking revenge, withdrawal, blaming, smoking, all of these things, they usually don't solve any problems. They may numb you for a little while, but they usually don't solve anything. And thoughts and feelings that move you away are thoughts and feelings that you get stuck in. Remember, it's natural to have them for a short period, but if you get stuck in them and you stay angry for hours or days or longer, resentment, if you just hold on to that and nurture it, anxiety, stress, powerlessness, distrust, egocentrism. Now this is one we didn't talk about, but when people have this thought that everything that happens, people were trying to hurt them or people were being disrespectful to them, it makes life a lot more miserable. So if you start thinking of alternate explanations, it can make things happier. Things you can do to help you move towards your Emerald City, get adequate quality sleep, proper nutrition, so your body has the building blocks to make the neurotransmitters to help you be happy. Exercise, whatever that means for you, if it means walking around the block or dancing around your house, just move, do something to get your blood flowing. Communication, use coping tools, practice problem solving, journaling, and taking personal responsibility are all things that you can do on a daily basis, but also when things go a little bit wonky that can help you deal with the unpleasant situation and continue to move forward, not getting stuck in unpleasant feelings. Thoughts that you can have are that can-do attitude, which is courage. I can do this, I got it. An attitude of gratitude, an attitude and feelings of hope, faith, honesty, and compassion. All of those things, if you look at the world through a lens of hope, faith, and compassion, it looks a lot different than if you look at it through a lens of not. So feelings are normal and can be very helpful. What you do with those feelings and how you spend your energy are up to you. You can either struggle in the quicksand with that feeling and tell yourself, I shouldn't feel this way. Well, every time you do, you're gonna sink a little bit more. You can run the other way, which is what we do when we use addictive behaviors or sleep or withdrawal, or you can choose to address it and move forward. Now, remember, there's some things you can't change, but you've got to address how you feel and figure out how to improve the next moment. By becoming aware of what's important to you, which is your Emerald City, then you can make a conscious decision each time you act. Asking yourself, will this help me get closer to what's important in my life? Awareness of unhelpful thoughts, feelings and actions that you take when you're distressed allows you to start making different choices. So those lists I had you make. When you start recognizing that you're using some of those unhelpful thoughts or actions, you can stop yourself and say, is this really the best choice? Or is there something else that I could do to deal with this situation that would help me move closer to what's important to me? As you become aware of alternate thoughts, feelings and behaviors that move you toward the things that are important, you can create a lifestyle plan that will help you reduce the frequency and intensity of distress, which is why I kept saying there are certain things that you want to do every day to kind of set the groundwork and try to start your day off on the right foot. Try to do as much as you can to ensure that it's going to be a good day. In other episodes of Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery, you can learn more about different coping strategies and things to add to work in that toward column. Subscribe to Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery on your favorite podcast app. Join us on our Facebook group at docsnipes.com slash Facebook, or join our community and access additional resources at docsnipes.com. Thanks for tuning into Happiness Isn't Brain Surgery with Doc Snipes. Our mission is to make practical tools for living the happiest life, affordable and accessible to everyone. 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